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January/February 2011 • V. 26 |No. 1

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Tron: Legacy’s VFX ASC Award Winners: Roger Deakins, ASC Michael D. O'Shea, ASC Music Libraries: Following Trends, For a Song Spotlight: Southeast Success Story

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JUSTIN FORNAL Filmmaker

Vegas Pro 10: A new dimension New Vegas™ Pro 10 software brings the third dimension to video production; edit and produce stereoscopic 3D video in all leading formats! The preferred platform for creative professionals,Vegas Pro 10 offers new features designed to further its reach including comprehensive closed captioning, enhanced plug-in support, and robust audio improvements. Vegas Pro’s intuitive interface makes it easy to learn and use. Its array of professional effects and flexible editing workflows lets you produce and create the way you want; its ability to ingest, edit and deliver content across varied formats, from tape to file based to DVD/Blu-ray, means you’ll always have ultimate control.Vegas Pro 10 also includes a full featured integrated 5.1 digital audio workstation, providing maximum functionality for scoring, sound design, and multitrack recording. Filmmaker Justin Fornal relies on Vegas Pro to create his hit BronxNet TV show “Bronx Flavor.” “Nothing gets you from raw footage to final render quicker than Vegas Pro,” Justin says. “Plus, its audio support consistently delivers the highest production values available.” Vegas Pro 10 delivers more than ever before. It’s a feature-rich, multi-media production environment, offering new dimensions for both you and your audience to explore. Realize your vision in all its dimensions with new Vegas Pro 10. For more information, please visit: www.sonycreativesoftware.com/food

Copyright ©2010. Sony Creative Software Inc. All rights reserved. “SONY” and “make.believe” are trademarks of Sony Corporation. Bronx Flavor is the exclusive property of BronxNet Media and Fornal Films LLC. Photo Kim M. Fornal.

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Markee2.0

Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

January/February 2011 Volume 26, Number 1

contents w w w. m a r k e e m a g . c o m

features 10

Cinematography – ASC Lifetime Achievement Award Winner:

Roger Deakins, ASC By Christine Bunish

Cinematography – ASC Career Achievement Award Winner:

Michael D. O’Shea, ASC By Christine Bunish

Feature Film VFX –

Digital Domain Creates a 21st-Century Tron: Legacy By Christine Bunish

24 Laser Pacific Lends Post Expertise to Tron: Legacy By Christine Bunish

Music Libraries:

Following Trends, For a Song By Mark R. Smith

Spotlight – The Southeast:

Setting the Stage(s) for Success

By Mark R. Smith

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January/February 2011

Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

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Markee2.0

Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

Markee 2.0 is a results-driven magazine that has been published since December 1985. A nationwide survey of film and video industry professionals revealed that Markee 2.0 is at the top of their must-read list.

6 28 36

www.markeemag.com

columns & departments 4

Editor’s Note

Making TV – Character Shows:

Editorially, Markee 2.0 offers a wide range of content tailored for its diverse readership. Features span film and video production and postproduction topics to include must-read interviews with leaders in the creative community, the latest equipment and technology news, perspectives on innovative independent filmmaking, and in-the-trenches reports on shooters, editors, animators and audio pros – plus regularlyscheduled specialty supplements. Markee 2.0’s seasoned writers know the industry inside-out. That’s what makes Markee 2.0 compelling, informative and timely reading.

In Blue Bloods, DP Dave Insley lenses a nuanced character portrait of a family of New York City cops By Michael Fickes

Making Commercials – Bond, Dwyane Wade Bond Agent D3 breaks free of the Zen Master in Nike Air Jordan's Dominate Another Day campaign. By Michael Fickes

17 Film Commission Portfolio – Tupelo Film Commission 18 Film Commission Portfolio – Virginia Film Office 46 In the Newsroom 48 Inside View: Stephen Arnold

By Christine Bunish www.markeemag.com

January/February 2011

| Markee 2.0

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from the editor

Markee2.0

Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

| by Christine Bunish

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Publisher

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It’s the season for industry awards and televised award shows. Broadcasts of the Golden Globes, SAG Awards and Oscars may be high on glitz, short on hosting talent and include some questionable nominees and glaring oversights, but they do serve to remind us that film plays a major role in all of our lives. This issue of Markee 2.0 aims to do the same thing. In our annual salute to the ASC Lifetime Achievement and Career Achievement Award winners, Roger Deakins and Michael O’Shea, respectively, we profile two cinematographers whose work in films and television symbolizes the best of the industry over the past 25 years. We also explore Digital Domain’s extraordinary VFX for Tron: Legacy, a film that succeeded with a delicate balancing act – pleasing baby boomers who have long waited for a sequel to Tron and engaging a new generation of moviegoers. Check out companion pieces on Laser Pacific’s DI and finishing for Tron: Legacy and Vicon House of Moves’ motion-capture contributions. On a different note, in this issue music libraries speak out about trends in their business, some of which are prompting growth. And film commissioners, production companies, post facilities and rental houses tell us what makes the Southeast such a powerhouse in film and television production today. Making TV describes the camerawork that brings Blue Bloods to life every week, and Making Commercials shows that it takes Animal Logic to make the new Nike Air Jordan campaign a hit.

Managing Editor

Senior Writers

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John Llewellyn llewellyn@lionhrtpub.com Christine Bunish editor@markeemag.com Cory Sekine-Pettite cory@lionhrtpub.com Michael Fickes Mark R. Smith Alan Brubaker albrubaker@lionhrtpub.com

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Highlights Coming In

March/April 2011

• NAB Shoppers and Sellers • Mobile Sports Production • VFX in Spots

Copyright © 2011 by Lionheart Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. The copyright owner, however, does consent to a single copy of an article being made for personal use. Otherwise, except under circumstances within “fair use” as defined by copyright law, no part of this publication may be reproduced, displayed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, Lionheart Publishing, Inc. Send e-mail permission requests to editor@markeemag.com.

• Spotlight: Texas/Southwest

IN EVERY ISSUE: Making TV • Making Commercials • Newsroom • Inside View

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January/February 2011

Disclaimer – The statements and opinions in the articles of this publication are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Lionheart Publishing, Inc. or the editorial staff of Markee 2.0 or any sponsoring organization. The appearance of advertisements in this magazine is not a warranty, endorsement, or approval of the products or services advertised.

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making TV

Blue Bloods | By Michael Fickes

Character Shows In Blue Bloods, Tom Selleck’s new police drama on CBS, DP Dave Insley lenses a nuanced character portrait of a family of New York City cops. At first glance, Blue Bloods looks like a cop show. And it is. But it is at least as much about the characters as it is about cops: The new CBS drama tells the story of a New York City family in law enforcement. In virtually every scene, the director – who varies from show to show – DP Dave Insley and New York City-based gaffer Gene Engels make choices about camera lenses, lighting and camera movement to communicate something about a character. The main characters: Chief of Police Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck) heads the Reagan family. Henry (Len Cariou), Frank’s retired father, is a former Chief of Police himself. Frank’s three adult children all work in law enforcement: daughter Erin Reagan Boyle (Bridget Moynahan) is an assistant district attorney, son Danny (Donnie Wahlberg) is a senior detective and younger son Jamie (Will Estes) is a street cop with a law degree, just beginning his career with the department. New York City is part of the Blue Bloods family and influences every location exterior. “We make New York a character in the show, too,” says Insley. “We try to shoot with medium to wide focal length lenses so we can see the environment. The Optimo 17 - 80mm is my preferred lens for this. Long lenses squash the background out of focus, and you could be shooting in any city. The short lenses provide a clear view of the city background. You can see the brownstones, the fire escapes and the streetscape – the character of the city.” Insley’s depiction of the Reagan family reveals character, too. He captures Frank, the paterfamilias of his clan and of the city, at eye level in just about every shot. “Frank is strong and straightforward and we compose him as such,” 6

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January/February 2011

Insley says. “Any shot with [Frank] uses a tripod or dolly – at police headquarters or in the family home.” By contrast, Insley usually shoots the show’s action hero, elder son and senior detective Danny, handheld. While Frank’s character arises from wisdom and gravitas, Danny comes alive when he is on the move. Watch one show, and you won’t be able to imagine seeing Danny shot the same way as Frank – or vice versa: It would seem as if they had suddenly stepped out of character. In fact, Insley did shoot Frank at home with a handheld camera once in order to build tension and show that everything was out of kilter.

Deploying RED One with Mysterium-X Each of the show’s two camera crews works with a RED One camera outfitted with the Mysterium-X (MX) chip. “In theory, it mimics 800 ASA, compared to the original chip, which was rated at 320 ASA,” explains Insley. “The MX chip is like a faster film stock. It needs less light and therefore allows us

[Above Top] Dave Insley is DP on the new CBS police drama, Blue Bloods.

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[Above] Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg, right) tries to clear his brother Jamie’s name after he witnesses a crime in progress. Photo by: Craig Blankenhorn/CBS © 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

to show more of New York City at night without the need for extra lighting.” The RED has a PL mount that accepts Angenieux Optimo film lenses. Insley also keeps a Canon 7D DSLR camera handy. “We modified the 7D to handle the same lenses as the RED,” he notes. “That enables us to use the 7D as a stunt camera.” Also part of the camera package are a Flipcam HD video camcorder and a Panasonic Lumix DMCLX3 point-and-shoot camera. The small cameras do special jobs. In one episode, a suspect flees through subway turnstiles with Danny following. Insley mounted the Lumix on one of the bars of the turnstile, so the audience www.markeemag.com

spins right along with the turnstile during the chase. “It’s a cool shot,” he says. Insley notes that while the Angenieux cine lenses “produce film-like video” there is also “more latitude to color correct RED One media than video from other HD cameras. That’s why we picked [it] as our primary production camera. We treat the production workflow as if it’s a film shoot. We don’t color correct on set but do so after the edit. Then, we have a RAW files colorist who color corrects as if it were film.” Insley sends RED files to Deluxe in New York City, which creates dailies for the edit. Following the edit, the conformed files go back to Deluxe for final color correction, just like in the traditional film process.

Lighting is Never Off the Shelf The DP defers to gaffer Gene Engels for lighting techniques. “I trust [him] about lighting. He has lighting tools I’ve

never seen before,” Insley reports. “We have big HMIs and other standard lights, but nothing Gene uses for close ups and interior shots is off the shelf.” For instance, Engels uses fresnels as key lights but never allows the light to strike an actor directly. He special orders a loosely woven muslin fabric in 10-foot by 25-foot sections. For an interior scene, he bunches up a 10-foot section of muslin beside the actor, maybe two feet away from a wall. Then he directs the fresnel along the back side of the fabric. “The muslin becomes the light, softening it and making it shadow-less,” Engels says. “You can dolly right up to an actor’s face and never see a shadow. You can pan left and right to create different looks and shoot the one you like.” Another unique lighting technique enables viewers to feel as if they are in a car, riding along with one of the characters. In one show, Danny drives across a bridge into Manhattan at night, and he is singing to himself. In the back seat, Insley wielded the RED camera by hand, using a Master Prime lens at T1.3 – wide open – and angling in on Danny’s right profile. Most of the lighting comes naturally from the headlights of passing cars, bridge lights and the skyline. Engels set a small bicolor LED on the car’s roof on the right side, shooting through the window, which might be open or closed. “[Danny] wasn’t lit up in the classic, properly-exposed sense,” Insley says. “But you could see his face, and you could see the background.” For other car shots, Engels uses the same technique with two bicolor LEDs set on the driver and passenger sides of the car roof. When the passenger turns to speak to the driver, the LED from the driver side illuminates the passenger’s face. When the passenger turns away, you see a soft silhouette. “I can dial in color and intensity on each unit to fit the shot,” Engels says. Watch Blue Bloods. You won’t see a scene that doesn’t use the camera, lenses, camera movement and lighting to communicate something very clear about the characters you’re watching. January/February 2011

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making Commercials

Nike Air Jordan | By Michael Fickes

Bond, Dwyane Wade Bond Agent D3 Dwyane Wade breaks free of the Zen Master in “The Escape,” episode two of Nike Air Jordan’s Dominate Another Day campaign. In the second episode of Dominate Another Day, the new Nike Air Jordan campaign from Wieden+Kennedy/NY, brand spokesman Dwyane Wade escapes from a Zen Master, leaps a snake pit and whips a gang of ninjas – with the help of Animal Logic, a computer-animation and VFX house based in Sydney, Australia, with offices in Santa Monica (www. animallogic.com). Wade, the Miami Heat’s shooting guard, led the team to an NBA championship in 2006. In the Dominate Another Day campaign, he trades in his nicknames – Flash and D-Wade – for a spy moniker, Agent D3, and assumes the identity of a James Bond-like character. His mission: To re-claim the NBA Championship rings, which have been stolen by a Zen Master protected by ninja warriors. The campaign so far has been rich in spectacular VFX and practical-effects shots. In the first commercial, “Launch,” D3 pilots a jetpack to Miami, ejects and appears to descend flying under his own power with the assistance of a wing-suit. As he reaches the ground, he catches a rider-less, racing motorcycle from the rear and leaps onto the bike. The close up jetpack scenes were shot against greenscreen with Animal Logic tracking and compositing the footage into shots of the Miami night sky. A stunt man handled the motorcycle scene leaping from the front of a camera truck following the bike, dragging his heels and virtually skiing along the road before vaulting neatly into the seat. “All we added for that scene were sparks flying off his feet,” says Benjamin Walsh, Animal Logic’s VFX supervisor and art director. 8

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In the second spot, “The Escape,” Animal Logic supplied a handful of relatively simple effects to the early scenes then displayed its skills by turning a small room into a cavernous, columned chamber and blowing up a high-rise building in a scene reminiscent of some of James Bond’s most destructive rampages. “The Escape” opens with D3 on his back, chained to a round rotating table. Beside him stands the Zen Master; D3’s basketball magically hovers over the prone superstar. The Zen Master’s fingers glitter with the NBA rings that D3 seeks. Leaving the chamber, the Zen Master, dressed in purple to recall the rival Los Angeles Lakers, activates a purple laser, created by Animal Logic in Autodesk Flame. The laser, seen cutting into the table itself via an effect created in Adobe Photoshop with matte painting, will kill D3 as the table rotates and sends him into the beam. Goldfinger, the third Connery-as-Bond movie, portrayed a similar scene: Tied to a platform, Bond watched in horror as an industrial laser cut the platform and threatened to rend Bond in half.

[Above] In “The Escape,” Dwyane Wade as Agent D3 is in a tough fix with a laser preparing to cut him in two and his nemesis, the Zen Master, admiring a handful of NBA Championship rings.

In the updated Air Jordan version, D3 displays no panic. He simply turns his head and positions his diamond ear stud to reflect the laser’s animated beam back into itself, destroying the laser gun. He bursts the prop chains in a practical shot to which Animal Logic added 2D sparks with Flame. Unchained, D3 leaps up, grabs the ball, animated in 3D with Autodesk Maya, and throws it at the entrance to the chamber, where a barred door is clamping down like jaws. The basketball blocks the bars from closing completely and D3 leaps through the opening, landing on one side of a pit filled with animated black mamba snakes, among the most dangerous in the world. It’s no coincidence that the leader of the L. A. Lakers is Kobe Bryant, whose nickname is Black Mamba. An aerial shot shows D3 leaping over the snake pit down to another chamber

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[Left] In the first spot of Nike Air Jordan’s Dominate Another Day campaign, D3 flies over Miami in a jetpack and wing-suit.

[Left Middle] Now free, D3 strolls away from an explosion in the building where he was trapped.

[Left Bottom] The pyro and one-third-scale model for the explosion were created by Kevin Harris fx in Fort Lauderdale.

as one of the black mambas strikes at D3 but misses. When he lands, he passes through a red beam, crafted in Flame, that sets off an alarm. An actual NBA shot clock starts counting down from 24, as ninja warriors flood the chamber. The ensuing fight is largely a series of practical camera shots showing D3 evading the ninjas. In one scene, where a ninja aims a throwing star at him and he blocks it with the basketball, Animal Logic animated the ninja weapon in Flame. Animal Logic’s most extensive VFX appeared in the chamber where the fight occurs. It appears to be a huge rectangle extending a great distance, with stone columns on either side outlining what might be a large entrance hall. In reality the room was a small space that director Noam Murro, of Los Angeles-based Biscuit Filmworks, wanted to enlarge. “The director shot the fight scene www.markeemag.com

with greenscreen on the back wall,” Walsh says. “Then we took photos of the room from different angles to use as source material. We manipulated the images and extended the space with Photoshop matte paintings. Then we built a rough 3D set extension in Maya and projected the matte painting elements onto the concrete columns and chamber surfaces to allow parallax when the camera moved. “We also used Flame to add atmosphere to the scene by creating light beams with subtle CG dust particles.” D3 escapes by firing a grappling gun into a skylight above and pulling himself up through the opening. “This was done in post, too,” Walsh says. “We shot a stunt double attached to a rope on a greenscreen set. The rope pulled him through a practical glass skylight rigged to shatter.” Biscuit Filmworks’ DP Simon Duggan shot the scene from below and above. The only practical elements were the stunt double, the rope and the glass. “The building and the environment were matte painted with Photoshop,” Walsh says. After his escape, we see D3 walking on the street. In the background a tall building, ostensibly where he had been imprisoned, explodes and flames shoot out the top. For the pyrotechnics, Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Kevin Harris fx

When It Takes Animal Logic Founded in 1991, Animal Logic earned its reputation producing award-winning design, VFX and animation skilled in both commercial and feature-film production. In the commercial world, the company also has handled spots for Acura, Honda, Hyundai, Subaru, BMW, Kaiser Permanente, Verizon and other major national advertisers. But Animal Logic is perhaps best known as the animation house that made Australia’s first digitally-animated feature, Happy Feet, which garnered a 2006 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. In 2010, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole was produced at Animal Logic in Sydney marking Australia’s first animated feature to be released in stereoscopic 3D. “Our Sydney offices are a tremendous resource,” says Animal Logic producer Scott Boyajan. “There are 250 employees there, with animation and VFX capabilities for features as well as commercials.” “We do the front-end conceptual and pre-viz work as well as the compositing and finishing here in Santa Monica,” adds Benjamin Walsh, Animal Logic’s VFX supervisor and art director. “The animation is done in Sydney, which is an enormous resource. They can power through the toughest CG jobs.” made a one-third-scale model of an actual Miami high-rise. “Harris set explosive detonators on top of the model,” Walsh says. “Vertical tubes filled with fuel lined the inside of the model. On the first take, the explosion blew off the top of the building. For safety, we did an additional take of just the flames shooting out of the top of the building. But the first take worked fine.” The final scene shows a composited live-action plate of Wade walking on the street, with the burning miniature building in the background. 3D debris blasting out of the windows helps sell the scale of the miniature, observes Walsh. And so, Wade, Dywane Wade is on the loose again. Stay tuned. January/February 2011

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Cinematography

ASC Lifetime Achievement BY CHRISTINE BUNISH

Every New Film Still Feels Like The First

ASC Lifetime Achievement Award Winner:

Roger Deakins 10

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When Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC received the 2011 American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Lifetime Achievement Award at a celebration at LA’s Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel on February 13, he joined a list of recent winners, such as Caleb Deschanel and Allen Daviau, who are still very much in the midst of busy careers. In fact, ASC president Michael Goi made that clear in the announcement of Deakins’s win. “The Lifetime Achievement Award is a reflection of the impact that a cinematographer has made on the art of filmmaking rather than the capping of a career,” he said. “It is our way of acknowledging a true artist in his prime. Roger Deakins raises the artistic profile of our profession with every movie, and he will continue to do so for many years.” Deakins, whose most recent film, True Grit, opened in December, is pleased with that lifetime-so-far explanation. “Time is a funny thing,” he observes. “In many ways it feels like I’ve only just started [in the business]. Every time I begin a film it feels like the first one.” February could be shaping up as quite a month for Deakins, who is nominated for an Academy Award for his work on True Grit. He has earned eight other Oscar nominations for his cinematography: The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Fargo (1996), Kundun (1997), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) and The Reader (shared with Chris Menges, ASC, BSC, 2008). He took ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards for The Shawshank Redemption and The Man Who Wasn’t There. Although Deakins has collaborated with a Who’s Who roster of directors, he’s been paired with brothers Ethan and Joel Coen 11 times. Still, a career as a cinematographer seemed remote for the native of the seaside town of Torquay on the coast of Devon, England. Deakins loved films as a child but “never considered it a possibility” that he’d one day work in the industry. He enrolled at the Bath Academy of Art as a graphics art major and discovered photography there. “I took a low-paying job as a photographer in North Devon photographing country life for an archive they were starting,” he recalls. Even late into the 1960s and early ‘70s some farmers in the region were using horse-drawn ploughs and there were people “who had never turned on a light switch – how the electricity got there was just too mysterious.” After a year documenting rural life Deakins was accepted at the National Film School in London where he www.markeemag.com

shot over a dozen dramatic and documentary films for himself and other students in the course of three years. When he finished school he had “dreams of being Tim Page, the Vietnam War photographer,” but first Deakins talked his way on board an around-the-world yacht race as director/cameraman and part of the crew. “I grew up by the sea but had no experience of yachts,” he notes. The experience yielded a 90-minute British television documentary “that was as much about the crew – and how they got along with each other or didn’t while living in a confined space under extreme conditions – as it was about the hazards or the romance of ocean racing. When you do a film like that people start taking you seriously because it requires a bit of nerve to do it.”

January/February 2011

[Above] Deakins’s latest feature is True Grit. Photo by: Wilson Webb ©Paramount Pictures 2010.

[Below] Deakins gets down into the mud for Jarhead.

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Cinematography

[Above] Deakins (bottom, center) sets up a crane shot for The Shawshank Redemption.

Roger Deakins

Deakins went on to more Tim Page-like assignments covering the liberation war in Eritrea for three months and the guerrilla war in what was then Rhodesia. After half-adozen years shooting docs and some dramatic programming for television he got a chance in 1983 to lens his first feature, Another Time, Another Place, for director Michael Radford, whom he’d met in film school. “I had worked with Michael on documentaries for the BBC, including one about Van Morrison in Ireland, and he’d seen some of the dramatic work I’d done for TV, so he took a chance on me,” says Deakins. “It was my first chance to do a feature film and my big break.” He reteamed with Radford the following year for 1984, based on the Orwell novel and Richard Burton’s last film.

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Sid and Nancy (1985) was the first film that brought Deakins to America where he now makes his home. He lensed that film in New York, San Francisco and LA; part of it was also shot in England. Deakins has traveled extensively for his work shooting Michael Radford’s evocative White Mischief, based on a real 1930’s murder, on the shores of Lake Naivasha, Kenya and Martin Scorsese’s exquisite Kundun with the Tibetan Diaspora in Morocco. In 1991 he met the Coen brothers when Barry Sonnenfeld, who had been their cinematographer, moved on to directing and the Coens contacted Deakins. Their long collaboration began with Barton Fink and has continued through 11 very unique films, including The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo and No Country For Old Men. “I’m very lucky to have met the Coens. Every script, every setting, every film is so different,” Deakins notes. “True Grit is very different from A Serious Man which preceded it. Each film is a challenge in its own way, mainly due to scheduling and locations.” True Grit was shot in Santa Fe, New Mexico and in the Austin, Texas area. “We were lucky to find a town called Granger, northeast of Austin, to stand in for Fort Smith: It’s a turn-of-the century town that worked very well with the addition of some false frontages, roofs and extra buildings,” Deakins explains. “Aesthetically, I don’t approach a period film any differently from a contemporary one,” he adds. “It depends on the story and the mood of the story. But everybody knows you’re working on something special with the Coens.” Deakins is a longtime user of Arriflex 35mm cameras, often the 535B. He prefers ARRI Master Prime lenses and rarely uses zooms “unless a specific shot requires it.” Since Deakins operates the camera himself he likes to plan the lighting scene to scene, pre-lighting and prerigging shots so he’s not preoccupied by lighting while he’s operating. That was especially necessary for True Grit which had “a pretty rough schedule. I had to be prepared and ready to shoot quite quickly so the more preparation the better.” Deakins tends to use conventional lighting instruments and “a huge amount of domestic fixtures as film lights – practical bulbs and my own lighting rigs. True Grit featured a lot of rigs I made up instead of rented; I’ve always done that. Coming from documentaries I tend to make up rigs from trips to the local hardware store.” Deakins is not averse to the latest technology, however. In 2002 he was one of the first cinematographers to use the Digital Intermediate (DI) process on the Coens’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? to manipulate the color palette and paint certain frames to give a dry, dusty look to exteriors that had actually been lush and green. He’s using the new ARRI ALEXA digital camera on his latest feature, Now, a “retro-futuristic thriller” from director Andrew Nichol. “I had been testing a prototype of the camera when I met with Andrew, and he asked if I was Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

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[Left] Deakins, who’s been partnered with Ethan and Joel Coen 11 times, talks cinema with the directing duo.

still shooting film,” says Deakins. “I said yes, but look at the tests I’ve been doing with ALEXA. It’s a really good choice for this futuristic film; it makes a fantastic, smooth image and the color is so rich that it seems to fit very well. “With ALEXA I can work faster, and I think it has more dynamic range and a wider color range than film. Its faster camera speed, 800 ASA, is quite a benefit for a lot of the night exteriors I’m shooting in LA.” Deakins has been a visual consultant for a number of animation studios, including DreamWorks for WALL-E and How To Train Your Dragon, the latter in stereo 3D. “Jeff Katzenberg is a very big advocate of 3D, which works for the kinds of films they’re doing,” he notes. “DreamWorks is good at telling entertaining stories and embracing 3D as a way of enhancing the entertainment aspects. But for the live-action films I like to shoot,” he muses, “I’m not sure I’d ever do 3D. I think it would be a distraction; I don’t quite understand where it fits in.” No Luddite, Deakins does not eschew new technology where it does fit in. He has said that he “would not dissuade the use of 16mm or a cell phone to capture an image if that medium were appropriate. Only change is a certainty and, as members of the ASC, we need to encourage students of cinematography to find their own ways of seeing and their own ways of creating images in our changing industry. If there is a threat to the role of the cinematographer in the future, it will surely be a lack of vision.” But he goes on to explain that “it’s not the technology today but the way it’s used” that reflects an industry that has changed greatly from when he got his start. “Technology doesn’t create the art. Everybody’s got a pen, but there was only one William Shakespeare. The problem is that nobody really wants William Shakespeare. Most of the time they don’t want the kind of films I love. Look at the films made in the 1970s versus now. The decline in the industry isn’t because of the technology but because of the way society has evolved.” Deakins is quick to say, “I can’t complain because I get to work on films I believe in and love, but I do feel that’s the way the industry is largely going. The independent film sector is very lively, but studio films’ content tends to be like arcade rides. I prefer a good story – I guess I’m old fashioned!” www.markeemag.com

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ASC Career Achievement BY CHRISTINE BUNISH

Photo by Douglas Kirkland

Learning Never Stops

ASC Career Achievement in Television Award Winner:

Michael D. O’Shea 14

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When Michael D. O’Shea presented the 2010 American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Career Achievement in Television Award to his longtime friend, John C. Flinn, III, O’Shea never expected to be back on that stage a year later. Now the roles are reversed with O’Shea collecting his own 2011 ASC Career Achievement in Television Award and Flinn presenting. “Last year I was nervous about writing my presentation speech for John, and now I have to write another one!” O’Shea says. “I thought they made a mistake when they told me I’d won – I’m totally humbled by it.” The Los Angeles native is no stranger to accolades having earned an Emmy award for CSI: Miami (2003) and Emmy nominations for Doogie Howser, M.D. (1992), the series Relativity (1997), the television movie To Love, Honor and Deceive (1997) and the mini-series The ’60s (1999). Throughout his career O’Shea has moved deftly between television and motion pictures creating a body of work he never could have imagined when he was playing semi-pro baseball. Family friend Henri Lehman, who was assistant head of the camera department at Warner Bros., got the young ball player a job as a laborer on the studio lot, and O’Shea asked him what departments he should try to get into if he didn’t make it in baseball. Lehman mentioned makeup, grip and cinematography, and O’Shea said he’d like to learn about cinematography. Lehman warned him it wouldn’t be easy since nepotism was still rampant in the field. “He told me to learn the equipment and when there were no more relatives available, I’d have the experience to get the job,” recalls O’Shea. “I was persistent. I spent a year hanging around the camera department after work every night until there was a job for a film loader and nobody’s son was available.” O’Shea kept his eyes and ears open as cinematographers Conrad L. Hall, ASC, Robert Burks, ASC, Robert Surtees, ASC, and Hall’s assistant and future ASC cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth came through the loading room at night discussing what they’d done that day. “I was listening,” says O’Shea. “Those are precious memories.” In the mid-1960s, “if you were in the union and a film loader at Warner’s and wanted to be aggressive you’d go in before your shift and hang out on the set,” he recalls. “The assistant cameramen were so gracious: If they knew you were interested they took the time to teach you. There were no egos about how this young guy was eventually going to take my job. “What appealed to me about the camera department was that I heard it was like going to school every day – you never stopped learning if you opened your mind to it. I www.markeemag.com

had no creative background in cinematography but was willing to learn from these great teachers. It’s something I’ve tried to pass on in my career, too.” An eager student, O’Shea blazed an amazingly accelerated path working his way up from 2nd assistant to 1st assistant in just six years. He learned “all the intricacies of the job” as 1st assistant on a B camera on Gunsmoke, was lead key 1st assistant on the series To Rome, With Love and did daily work at Paramount. Then Howard Schwartz, ASC, made O’Shea an offer he couldn’t refuse. “He was looking for an assistant, and after about a month with him he asked me if I wanted to go back to Gunsmoke or stay with him. He made me a deal: If you stay my 1st assistant, I’ll make you an operator in three years. That was unheard of in 1969.” O’Shea accepted Schwartz’s offer and the cinematographer became an important mentor. “He was like a professor. If there was any new equipment, we’d find out about it and test it. He told me you can never stop learning in this business – if you think you’ve arrived you’re wrong.” Schwartz was true to his word and made O’Shea an operator three years later. “When I was operating nobody could see what I was doing until the next day [when the film was processed],” he explains. “I made a lot of mistakes, but Howard had a lot of patience. He’d critique what I could do better and praised me when I deserved it.” While O’Shea is quick to say that “a lot of fantastic cinematographers have come out of film school,” he’s a little sorry that they’ve missed “coming up through the system” as he did. “We got to see the process from film loading to cinematography, how it all came together. It was invaluable.” O’Shea enjoyed being a camera operator and thought he’d remain in that position for the rest of his career. “Why would I want to move up to DP and deal with the political end of the job?” he asks. He had operated for 17 years when Lloyd Ahern, ASC, hired him for the series Hooperman (1987) and quizzed him about becoming a DP. “I told him why should January/February 2011

[Above] Early in his career O’Shea, shown here in on location in Custer, South Dakota, was an assistant cameraman on Gunsmoke.

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Cinematography

[Above] O’Shea (seated at left) listens to director Mel Brooks (center) on the set of Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

[Below] Michael O’Shea (center, behind camera) and crew on location in Austin, Texas for The New Guy (2000).

Michael D. O’Shea

I go through what you’re going through? I felt I had it made as an operator. But Lloyd was pushing me with the Bochco people. I stayed two seasons with Hooperman and did some movies in between. Then Bochco’s Doogie Howser, M.D. came up. DP Fred Moore had hired an operator but had to replace him. Fred told me he was probably only going to do the show for a year, so if I was serious about moving up this would be a great opportunity for me. I talked it over with my wife, and when Fred left after one season I moved up, inherited a wonderful crew and stayed three seasons.” While O’Shea was shooting Doogie Howser on the Fox lot he’d occasionally see Mel Brooks at lunch. The funnyman and creative force of nature would tell him, “I’m keeping an eye on you!” O’Shea had already worked as operator on Brook’s Space Balls (1987) during which DP Nick McLean, a longtime colleague, readily gave credit to O’Shea for the test shoots Brooks reviewed. Like Howard Schwartz, Brooks was as good as his word and kept O’Shea in mind when he was planning Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). The director hired O’Shea as DP for that film, a role he reprised with Brooks’s Dracula: Dead and Loving It two years later.

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O’Shea went on to earn an Emmy nomination for To Love, Honor and Deceive, a television movie directed by Michael Watkins, ASC, himself a two-time Emmy winner. “It was his first Movie of the Week. Michael was well prepared and made challenging and interesting shot selections. He was an award-winning cinematographer, but he never told me how to light. Michael was very collaborative and brought a lot of enthusiasm to the project.” The DP went on to garner another Emmy nomination for the miniseries The ’60s about a Chicago family during the Vietnam War. For the segments covering the protests during the 1968 Democratic convention, he researched the film stock that captured the events 30 years earlier and recreated the demonstrations and riots on 16mm color reversal film. Several years later O’Shea and Walt Lloyd, ASC alternated as DPs on the debut season of CSI: Miami. “They already had the camera movement style from the Las Vegas series: long lenses and lateral dolly moves. We established the Miami colors which they’ve taken a lot further since. They had a look they wanted but they also gave us license to take chances, and it was rewarding photographically. We shot the flashbacks of how the murders might have been committed with different methods of distortion to keep the audience guessing.” O’Shea also shot the pilots of Everwood and Jack and Bobby and the first two seasons of Eli Stone. Although O’Shea admits that he still loves shooting film and enjoys “the mystique of film, not knowing what you have until you see it the next day,” he regards digital cinematography as “another part of the learning process, and you never get too old to grow. When I get an opportunity to shoot digital, I apply what I know from film to make digital look as good as possible.” He is currently looking for a pilot and hopes to find a reason soon to reunite with the crew he says is “probably the biggest reason I’m getting the ASC award – I couldn’t have done it without people helping me along the way and my crew has been with me for most of my career.” He cites operators Steven Smith, Michael Genne and Denny Hall (who is also an DP); 2nd assistant George Dye; key grip Jeff Case and gaffer Jack Schlosser. Plus, “the best 1st assistant ever, Sean O’Shea – and he didn’t learn it from me!” O’Shea points out that son Sean has come up in the industry “similarly to me starting as a loader and working his way up. He wants to be an assistant. He’s seen what I’ve gone through and is very happy being an assistant.” When young people ask him for advice, O’Shea tells them to “pay attention, don’t be afraid to ask questions and try different things, trust your instincts and be true to yourself and your collaborators. That’s the same advice I got when I came into the industry.” And look where it’s taken him. Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

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Tupelo Film Commission

UPELO, RECOGNIZED WORLDWIDE AS THE “BIRTHPLACE OF ELVIS,” is a city that has attracted

filmmakers and production companies across the globe for years. The filming of documentaries and television programs about Elvis, gospel music, the Natchez Trace Parkway and other subjects have been of continued interest. “It is the mission of the Tupelo Film Commission to attract productions to Tupelo,” says Pat Rasberry who heads The Tupelo Film Commission. “We are genuine in our efforts to accommodate filmmakers’ requests and provide the assistance needed for successful projects. We are fortunate to have a municipality and citizens who are supportive of film productions.” In addition to supporting productions, the Tupelo Film Commission has increased film synergy in the area. The Commission also oversees the Tupelo Film Festival, Film Workshops, Children’s Film Events, Indie Film Series and other special film projects.

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A city of 36,000 residents, which expands to 100,000 during the workday, Tupelo has a wonderful historic downtown district, interesting and remarkable attractions, great retail venues, old buildings and that ‘Pleasantville’ environment. Also within a few miles is the Tombigbee River, diverse terrain, cotton and soybean fields, manufacturing and industrial plants, and railroad yards. The city also has an innovative alternative to soundstages for producers looking to shoot interiors or do extensive set building. Tupelo is the thirdlargest furniture market in the country with two huge furniture complexes. The Tupelo Furniture Market Complex is open all year with the exception of a six-week limitation during furniture market season, but the Mississippi Complex is open the entire year for film requests or set building. “The buildings have many amenities,” Rasberry points out, citing carpenters, electricians, office support, security, 24-

hour access, props from permanent showrooms, huge lighted parking lots, RV hook-ups, catering venues, an onsite apartment, and numerous loading docks. The largest space available in the sixbuilding Tupelo Complex is 96,000 square feet and the largest column-less space is 63,000 square feet. The Mississippi Complex offers spaces measuring 43,000 and 39,000 square feet. Mississippi’s Motion Picture Incentive Program offers “great incentives to filmmakers,” says Rasberry. “Ward Emling, director of the Mississippi Film Office, has been the driving force behind enhancing the incentive package and making it more attractive.” Emling continues to research ideas and opportunities to improve the rebate program and strengthen the crew base in Mississippi. “With great incentives, warm hospitality and genuine interest, Tupelo wants to be your next film location,” she declares. “Take a look at what we have to offer and give us a call.”

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Virginia Film Office

HE UNITED STATES IS APPROACHING THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY of the start of the Civil War, and the spotlight is on Virginia, once the capital of the Confederacy and the site of more major Civil War battles than any other state. In 1861 the first battle of Manassas was fought at Bull Run, and the following year two ironclad ships engaged in the first naval battle of the war. Numerous other battles were fought in the state, including the second battle of Bull Run and the battles of Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania. The war reached its conclusion in Richmond followed by the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. Virginia has a wide range of architecture dating from the Civil War era. Government and commercial buildings, farms, railroad

stations and historic homes can replicate this important era in American history. Films such as Gods and Generals, Cold Mountain, Tad and Gore Vidal’s Lincoln have all taken advantage of Virginia’s rich Civil War historical sites and locations. In addition to its history, Virginia is a study in contrasts where spectacular natural beauty and rich architecture co-exist with a wide variety of cities and towns. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean with urban resort towns and deserted ocean beaches. To the west are rolling foothills, dramatic mountain vistas and serene valleys. There are towns of all sizes and descriptions, some rough and

Photos Courtesy of Virginia Tourism Corporation

Virginia and the Civil War

industrial, others historical and charming, still others sleek and ultra-modern. Dirty Dancing, Coal Miner’s Daughter, What About Bob? Evan Almighty and Sommersby all showcase Virginia’s scenic and urban locations. Richmond also doubles for Washington, D.C.; feature films such as The Contender, Hannibal, Dave, and First Kid all used Richmond as the nation’s capital.

TO FIND OUT ABOUT FILMING IN VIRGINIA VISIT WWW.FILM.VIRGINIA.ORG OR CALL 800.854.6233. 18

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Digital Domain Creates a 21st-Century

TRON: LEGACY

ans of 1982’s Tron, the groundbreaking VFX film of its day, have waited almost three decades for its sequel, Tron: Legacy, which picks up the story

with a now-grown Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) discovering a way to enter The Grid, a virtual world inside the computer where his father, Kevin (Jeff Bridges), disappeared. With a fan base of baby boomers to please and a new generation of moviegoers to captivate, the stakes have been high for Tron: Legacy. A month after it was released the stereo 3D feature from Walt Disney Studios had grossed more than $343 million worldwide and passed the $50-million mark on IMAX screens alone. Since all but a few minutes at the start and end of the film take place in The Grid, VFX play a starring role. The digital artists who worked on Tron: Legacy at Venice, California’s Digital Domain (www.digitaldomain.com), the film’s lead digital production studio, and its international outsource partners, were outfitted with equipment and capabilities that their counterparts on the original Tron could only dream about. Academy Award-winning Digital Domain’s involvement in the project began more than four years ago when VFX supervisor Eric Barba teamed with Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski on spots for the launch of Xbox 360 video games Gears of War and Halo 3. “Joe [Kosinski] came to the attention of producer Sean Bailey who talked to him about what he wanted in a sequel to Tron,” Barba recalls. “They came to us for a test for Tron, but I was heavily involved with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at the time and passed it off to another team here at the end of 2007.” By the time the Digital Domain team finished six months later the test had grown to a three-minute piece in stereo 3D that dazzled audiences at Comic-Con 2008. Although Barba was still engrossed with Benjamin Button, a key part of which had direct applications to Tron: Legacy, he was named VFX supervisor for the latter and began to plan how to tackle the sequel.

BY CHRISTINE BUNISH

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[Opposite Page] The location of Flynn's arcade -- on Moebius and Mead Streets -- pays homage to the electronic conceptual designers of the 1982 film. Photo ÂŠ Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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21st-Century Tron: Legacy

Barba was a collaborative partner with Kosinski from the beginning. “Joe had strong visual ideas about what should happen, and we had to live up to what [electronic conceptual designers Jean] Moebius [Giraud] and [Syd] Mead designed for the 1982 film. It was a huge artistic challenge to make people feel connected to the first film and yet make a new film for a modern audience.”

“It was a huge artistic challenge to make people feel connected to the first film and yet make a film for a modern audience.” A team staffed with “amazingly-talented artists and designers” began blocking out a world with Kosinski that felt like The Grid three decades later. “Darren Gilford worked with Joe to set up Disney’s art department for Tron: Legacy here at Digital Domain,” Barba explains. The convenience of having the designers and VFX artists working side-by-side would prove to be immeasurable. “Our modeling and pre-viz team had a quick, interactive process [with the designers] to figure out sequences,” he says. “Some designs were easy to adapt in 3D software and get fully-realized 3D models. But some amazing 2D illustrations were harder to translate into a moving environment.” [Top] Digital Domain VFX supervisor Eric Barba put his experience on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to good use on Tron: Legacy.

[Below] The nerve center where Digital Domain’s digital artists working on Tron: Legacy performed their wizardry.

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Enter Stereoscopic 3D An additional challenge was that Tron: Legacy was conceived as a stereo 3D production at a time when that was still relatively rare for major feature films. “It was well before anyone saw Avatar,” Barba reminds us. “We had never done a stereo 3D movie before. The state-of-the art technology was still two cameras strapped together with a mirror when we began shooting in 2009.” They knew that stereo 3D pioneer Vince Pace was “the guy” to partner with on Tron: Legacy’s production. Avatar had been shooting with Sony HDC-950 and F23 cameras, but Kosinski and DP Claudio Miranda opted for Sony F35 cameras with a Super 35mm-sized sensor that required new rigs. “Joe and Claudio wanted the bigger sensor for more traditional depth of field,” Barba says. “That plays out in how the movie looks. It was something we could use artistically as well.” When and how to use pop-out stereo 3D effects were based on what Barba calls “a window approach to the world. We decided we wouldn’t bring it on as a gimmick or a gag but only where it was appropriate to a scene.” A lot of software for dealing with stereo 3D was developed at Digital Domain, he adds. “To test and view the 3D we had to install a RealD system on a Christie projector here. We had to develop tools to adjust the stereo 3D – some were as simple as making the virtual camera look like the cameras in the Pace rig and sharing that with our outsource partners so we could load all the Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

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Vicon House of Moves Provides Motion Capture for Tron: Legacy

HOM’s large, permanent motion-capture stage.

The Los Angeles stages of Vicon House of Moves (HOM) hosted five days of rehearsal and seven days of motion-capture shooting for Tron: Legacy. The crew shot high-impact stunt work along with more subtle body and finger poses and movements of the actors sitting and riding Light Cycles at HOM’s 26,000square-foot studio. HOM (www.moves.com) had previously worked on motion-capture shoots for the film’s first teaser at Comic-Con 2008. The principal cinematography crew was on set alongside the mo-cap team at HOM to capture live-action footage of select actors’ faces to map inside the helmets of the digital doubles that appear in the film. The HOM crew captured motion of the actors riding a modified Light Cycle prop that could be manipulated on the mo-cap stage. For high-action stunt work, actors wore protective wires as they were thrown off Light Cycles and flew through the air after a high-speed crash. Tron: Legacy “benefited from both of the House of Moves stages, working on our fully-enclosed soundstage to capture more subtle movements and our 70foot-long main stage which gave them the ability – and space – needed to fling stunt performers long distances,” says HOM executive producer Scott Gagain. HOM is the service company for Vicon, the world’s largest supplier of precision motion-tracking systems and match-moving software.

The soundstage studio at HOM has capabilities for full body and face capture.

“We spent more time than we expected to make sure the 3D was a comfortable, enjoyable experience.” data, do the renders and the live-action integration and it would all look like it was shot by the same DP. With the [F35’s] sensor on Master Primes you get a shallow depth of field and beautiful images with lights and colors. All the CG had to match that live-action cinematography.” Digital Domain also teamed with The Foundry to develop a suite of tools for ColourMatcher, an OCULA plug-in for Nuke, that fixed polarization issues found in the photographic plates. An alpha build of the new solution was implemented in the Digital Domain pipeline and rolled out to its VFX partner studios; the alpha has since been released as OCULA 2.1. Digital Domain’s own tracking software also had to be revamped to track the left and right eyes precisely. “When you see a CG head on a live actor on a 50-foot IMAX screen it has to sit beyond a half-pixel precision,” Barba says. During production, “we paid attention to the 3D movies that came out and the complaints we heard from audiences,” he notes. “Some movies shot live action with too much separation, and on a 50-foot screen that becomes very uncomfortable for viewers. [The Grid] was a super-contrasty world with bright lights and dark backgrounds and that can produce ghosting, which is also uncomfortable to 21st-Century Tron: Legacy, continued on p.25 www.markeemag.com

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Laser Pacific Lends Post Expertise to Tron: Legacy

DI colorist Dave Cole at work on Tron: Legacy.

In the same way that Digital Domain got an early start on the VFX for Tron: Legacy, Hollywood’s Laser Pacific (www.laserpacific.com) began servicing the feature’s postproduction needs by handling all the digital negatives. “We were involved in early discussions and testing since the Sony F35 cameras in the Pace 3D rigs were going to record to a Codex digital hard drive,” says André Trejo, Laser Pacific’s vice president of DI and mastering operations. “We needed to combine parts of various workflows in a unique way for Tron: Legacy because they were recording 3D to hard drive, not tape. “It required a lot of collaboration among our engineering team, Pace and Codex to make sure everyone was on the same page with file-naming conventions and how to identify the LTOs [Linear Tape-Open magnetic tape data storage] since there were no camera reels. We had to manage all the data and deliver it to all the parties efficiently.” Pacific boasts the biggest DI grading theater in Laser Pacific archived LTOs of the film’s daily output that essentially became the original digital negative. Laser Los Angeles with a 33-foot screen; screen size is very When the cutting room began to provide EDLs, the facility was able to pull the required files for Digital Domain’s important for 3D depth perception, so the more closely grading environment matches an actual movie theVFX work. “We used our proprietary file-management software to wrangle all the data; we can now apply the meat the ater, the better. of that to our next 3D project,” Trejo says. Early on DI colorist Dave Cole developed and tested color looks with director Joseph Kosinski and prepared the Tron: Legacy trailer for Comic-Con 2009. But the real “nitty gritty of finishing” began last September, Trejo reports. Autodesk’s Lustre was selected for both the film’s conform and color correction. “Everything lived in the same box; we weren’t bouncing between two platforms,” says Trejo. “Whenever there was an edit change Dave could immediately apply color grades to the new material, so it was very advantageous.” Laser Pacific worked closely with Autodesk on Lustre capabilities that would aid the stereo 3D finish. “Lustre already offered powerful 3D capabilities such as stereo sync grading, and [based on] our experience from the early days of the feature, the stereo sync grading tools within Lustre were refined and enhanced,” Trejo says. As it was finishing the feature, Laser Pacific was also juggling trailers for theaters, TV and the Internet; a 20-minute promo for a Tokyo event; and a piece for elecTRONica, a techno dance party promoting the film at Disney’s California Adventure Park. “We were able to source a lot of different needs,” notes Trejo. “Our trailer department used Autodesk Smoke which can publish to Lustre, so they worked well together.” A first for Laser Pacific was establishing a remote color-grading environment at Skywalker Sound when Kosinski moved there for the mix. With just a two-week turnaround, the facility set up a Lustre suite for Cole who joined the director at Skywalker Sound. “We were able to continue with the heavy editing here and send files Dave could pull up on his Lustre over secure fibre connections,” explains Trejo. “Once Dave was done, he sent us his graded files and we applied them to the media here. It was a hugely successful process – they loved it.” Laser Pacific has undoubtedly “gained a lot of 3D experience over the last three years” with its extensive work on Tron: Legacy and, before that, Step Up 3 and Cats and Dogs 2. “We recently wrapped up the 3D documentary Justin Bieber: Never Say Never from director Jon Chu of Step Up 3,” Trejo reports. “We have additional 3D projects committed for 2011 that will provide exciting opportunities for our team and the filmmakers.”

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21st-Century Tron: Legacy, continued from p.23

see. So we spent more time than we expected to make sure the 3D was a comfortable, enjoyable experience.” Kosinski, Miranda and Barba made a group decision not to use a stereographer for the film believing that having a stereographer on set “allows everyone to hide from the responsibility of learning and understanding stereo 3D. We all wore the stereographer hat and learned how to make our own artistic decisions.” Digital Domain animation director Steve Preeg became known as Captain Stereo during the course of production, however. “He had an amazing sensitivity to when something was not right; he had a finer sense of it than Joe or I,” says Barba. “We were all very concerned that the 3D be an immersive experience for the audience but not one that would give them headaches or make them feel nauseous.”

Clu, In The Grid, With an Army One of the biggest challenges for Digital Domain was creating Clu, Kevin Flynn’s nemesis who seized control of The Grid and forced Kevin into hiding when the portal back to the real world closed. Clu, who is seen throughout the film, is the alter ego of the Kevin Flynn we saw in the 1982 Tron. Much of the movie has Clu, depicted as the younger Jeff Bridges, squaring off against today’s Jeff Bridges playing the older Kevin Flynn. Sound complicated? It was. But, fortunately, it was not without precedent at Digital Domain. Barba was working on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in which real-life young Brad Pitt also plays his older self, when the test for Tron: Legacy was produced. “While I was finishing Benjamin Button I was able to roll my team onto Tron: Legacy,” he says. “We had a huge knowledge base and had devised a method of working on that film that could be brought to the new picture. But remember that we’ve all seen Jeff Bridges at 35; we know how he looked and acted. We haven’t seen an 85-year-old Brad Pitt, so we had more artistic license with [Pitt].” Skin and eye systems developed for Benjamin Button did not have to be retooled for Tron: Legacy, “a big bonus” for Barba’s team. But “Clu had 10 times as much as hair as Benjamin Button, and it was blowing around,” he says. “So we had to rewrite the hair system and the dynamic system for the hair; digital hair supervisor Mattias Bergbom did a stellar job.”

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[Below] Moments after finding himself in The Grid, Sam Flynn is captured by a Recognizer and flown through the city on his way to becoming a disk-game combatant. Photo © Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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21st-Century Tron: Legacy “Creating a photoreal human has been the Holy Grail of animation.”

Another major difference was how the actor’s performance was captured. “After Benjamin Button was cut Brad came in and did a new performance [as his older self] with a four-camera system recording him. He’d click into character instantly,” Barba recalls. “Jeff wanted to be on the set, feeling the other characters and being in the moment. So we came up with a four-camera, helmet-mounted system for Jeff [who had 140 optical performance-capture dots on his face] to wear on the set. The hardware was from Image Movers Digital and Disney; we wrote the software.” Digital Domain’s Faceplant software took the 3D moving-point data from the four cameras and calculated what the movements meant to Bridges’s face based on a library of face shapes made during a motion-capture session in June 2008. Those timings were retagged onto the younger model of Bridges built in the computer, and a fully-CG Clu head was composited onto actor John Reardon’s body. “The animators were able to make fine adjustments to his performance, but Clu’s performance was all Jeff,” says Barba. “The last thing you want to do with an actor of Jeff’s caliber is have an animator try to interpret his nuances – and he’s very nuanced as Clu who’s strange, creepy, full of pent up anger. Watching Jeff slip into those different roles on the set was great to see.” The same techniques applied to Clu were used to create the Tron character who also appeared in the original film. He bears the face of the young Bruce Boxleitner who co-stars in Tron: Legacy as Kevin Flynn’s colleague and the catalyst for Sam’s journey to The Grid. Since the Tron character is not as prominent as Clu, the animators did not spend as much time on him, opting for a “slimmed down and more cost-effective process” to capture his performance. Nevertheless, “creating a photoreal human has been the Holy Grail of animation,” Barba notes. “Tron: Legacy pushed us further than ever before and the fact that it was 3D made it more difficult.”

Bikes Like Liquid Glass and Suits That Glow Other elements in the storyline proved challenging, too. Barba remembers how “the disk game and light ride from the first Tron made an indelible impression on my young, creative brain. That I was responsible for putting them on the screen for a new generation scared the crap out of me!” Barba’s experience doing VFX for “lots of car commercials” came in handy for the all-CG Light Cycles; no prop Light Cycles were built for the film. “We used every trick we knew about how to light cars,” he says. “Joe 26

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wanted the Light Cycles to look like liquid glass with lines on them: very reflective and refractive. With those qualities ray tracing would be the way to go, but it’s traditionally a very CPU-intensive process. So we had to come up with smart ways to make it feasible.” The disk-game players were shot bluescreen and featured some incredible acrobatic and stunt performances, such as one delivered by martial artist Anis Cheurfa who played Rinzler, Clu’s primary enforcer. “He did his stunts without rigging,” says Barba. “He could turn 360 degrees from a jump in the air. His performance competing against Sam was all done in-camera.” For some disk-game shots, though, Digital Domain had to track the helmets of the players, rotomate their bodies and render CG versions of their bodies to create accurate reflections in the all-glass environment. Frame-by-frame rotomating of the performances was painstaking, and “working in 3D space was so much trickier,” says Barba. Quantum Creation FX built the actors’ sleek custom suits and equipped them with software-controlled inverters and remote controls for the suits’ practical lighting effects. Digital Domain enhanced the suits “to give life to their glow. In the original Tron [frame-by-frame] rotomating gave life and crackle to the suits’ lights, and we thought we’d pay homage to that and add crackle to our suits,” says Barba. “We also added soft diffusion to integrate the suits into the environment and added atmosphere where we could, which helped with the ghosting from the stereo 3D.” The cityscape of The Grid traditionally would have been matte paintings. “But in a 3D movie other 3D elements won’t look right with a flat matte painting,” Barba says. “You can’t cheat like that. We had to project everything onto geometry with scenes built to the correct scale and depth.” The goal of delivering cohesive VFX from Digital Domain and studios in Mumbai, Toronto, Mexico City and Vancouver was daunting but, ultimately, achievable, he says. “When movies send VFX to multiple facilities you always fear that each sequence will look different. We wanted to keep everything consistent, to have it feel as if everything was conceived in the same place. Two years, 1,565 shots, several VFX companies – it was a massive logistical and technical challenge for all involved.” With Tron: Legacy delighting baby boomers and bringing throngs of new fans to the Tron franchise Barba has ample evidence of a job well done. “We know how much the original film was loved, and it was a huge burden to live up to that legend,” he says. “But I couldn’t have imagined a better job.” www.markeemag.com

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Music Libraries:

Following Trends, BY MARK R. SMITH

For a Song 28

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PRODUCTION MUSIC LIBRARIES are as much subject to trends as any other slice of the film and video business. They’re witnessing a wave of acquisitions and global expansion, new technology demands, increased business from the video game sector and growth in original song placement. But whether they’re following trends or setting their own, libraries are primed to meet clients’ needs for top-quality, fresh, easy-access sounds. Technology Spurs Growth at FirstCom The forward march of technology has augmented the bottom lines of music and sound effects libraries in a variety of ways, and FirstCom Music, of Dallas, is no exception (www.firstcom.com). Senior vice president and executive producer Ken Nelson is quick to cite the trend – and probably soon the routine practice – of music libraries on mobile phones and other handheld devices. FirstCom has an application available “that pushes new updates out to our iPhone app,” he explains. Accessing music via a mobile app for auditioning and spotting to video “will become the norm within the next year. We’re at the forefront of these applications.” FirstCom’s New Releases On The Go makes it easier than ever to keep up all of the great new music released by the company. A link from the FirstCom website allows users to add the app icon to their mobile device. Any time FirstCom releases new music the app is immediately updated. Music libraries are also gaining market share with video game customers. “As game developers have come to discover the ease of acquisition and the assets from FirstCom,” says Nelson, “our game specialization

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has exploded. We offer a vast catalog of extreme sports music, rocktronica, metal and any other type of music a video game might need depending on the content.” Nelson also observes a tendency toward greater outreach, such as joint ventures with international partners. FirstCom is currently involved in a liaison with what Nelson calls “an enormously influential media entity in the U.K.” that will include distribution of their music assets, as well as long-term licensing for FirstCom and the U.K. concern. Another trend is that of mid-sized music libraries growing via the acquisition of other libraries. “This has been happening for some time and is more difficult to manage than it appears,” Nelson believes. “Unfortunately, we have seen throughout the industry a trend from smaller and mid-size libraries to ‘bulk up’ with whatever falls on their desk.” That’s not necessarily a good approach for clients, however. “We’ve seen an explosion in lowquality, low-budget libraries that aggregate in the belief that size equals high quality. The idea of bulking up to fool clients into thinking that your group of poor libraries will equal something that will work for them is just not working.”

January/February 2011

[Above] FirstCom Music’s senior vice president and executive producer, Ken Nelson.

[Below Left] FirstCom Music’s New Releases on the Go mobile app.

[Below Right] FirstCom Music’s Block Rocker offers cut-andpaste, mash-ups and funky breaks.

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Music and Sound Library Trends

What is working is placing songs (as opposed to just generic background music) from emerging songwriters for customers. “FirstCom has had great success in focusing on the A&R (artists and repertoire) market for singer-songwriters,” Nelson reports. FirstCom created Roadside Couch Records in 2005, in part to answer the demand of clients and producers for songs that could be licensed without hassle. The latest news is that FirstCom is now representing the MasterSource Library. MasterSource brings 400 artists and more than 8,000 tracks to the FirstCom collection. “That’s allowed us to add to our arsenal one of the best catalogs of easy-to-license song styles, bands, singers and source music,” he says.

nies like ours to provide the high-quality, convenient licensing solution that they’re seeking.” Like some other music libraries, Killer Tracks is starting to see demand from users of the web, mobile phones and other handheld devices. “We’re focusing on making our catalog available to clients wherever they might want to audition our music,” reports Gurule. “Our new website is compatible with many mobile and handheld devices, and we’re constantly working on developing additional tools for clients to access our music ‘on the go.’”

Killer Tracks Boosts Business on Multiple Fronts

[Right] Killer Tracks’ new website invites exploration.

The vibe is positive at Killer Tracks in West Hollywood (www.killertracks.com) where business has “absolutely” picked up during the last six months, says vice president of marketing David Gurule. “More and more people are looking for compa-

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[Far Left] Killer Tracks’ Trailer Tool Kit 4 for Epic Action Trailers is ideal for high-impact video game marketing campaigns.

[Left] Dozier Generations from Killer Tracks features contemporary R&B/pop songs with vocals.

[Below Left] Killer Music’s vice president of marketing, David Gurule.

The library is also gaining more video game customers, which isn’t a surprise since Killer Tracks has “been supporting that industry for several years now. But that percentage of our business has become more significant,” he notes. “It’s gone from an ‘experimental’ type of sector to an important part of our business,” whether for in-game, marketing or educational usage. Killer Tracks has released many albums tailored specifically to this market, he reports, including Video Game Trailers, 8 Bit Glitch, Crime Drama, Epic Action Trailers, Sports FX Grooves and more. Several titles even feature stem mixes with clear edit points for easy in-game placement. “Of course, the depth and breadth of our catalog is the real benefit to game developers as the variety of game genres is always evolving and expanding,” says Gurule. While many libraries have been solidifying international connections lately, Killer Tracks has been distributed internationally, via many offices, for more than a decade; there are now more than 30 affiliated offices worldwide, and Gurule is hopeful that more are on the horizon. Killer Tracks is “always looking to acquire a catalog or a business if it can accentuate our existing catalog and provide additional value to clients” or prospective clients, he adds. “This is already a very large catalog, with more than 2,000 CDs within 21 libraries,” Gurule explains. “We’re always open to the idea of acquisitions. There is movement in the market today on the acquisition front; but what needs to be looked at carefully is whether or not the acquisitions are simply being made to increase track numbers or if www.markeemag.com

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Music and Sound Library Trends

the acquisitions are indeed adding value for the client. We don’t care about simply increasing the numbers of tracks in our catalog, just to use it as a marketing line.” Killer Tracks is on board with the trend of increased usage of songs with vocals by independent artists. The library already contains more than one thousand songs with vocals from a variety of independent artists. “We are seeing a rise in the licensing of songs with vocals,” Gurule reports, pointing to recent CDs featuring the songs of indie/folk artist Christina Courtin and another of R&B/pop vocals from multi-platinum songwriter and producer Beau Dozier. “Those songs have already been licensed many times in just a few months,” he says, “because clients are realizing that Killer Tracks can offer much more than just background music; we can offer compelling artist material as well. We’re looking at this as a growth area.”

Demand for Quality is Non-Stop

[Below] Judd Maher and Glen Neibaur mix a live orchestral session at Non-Stop Music’s LA East Recording Studios.

It makes sense that Randy Thornton was in London when this interview took place since Salt Lake Citybased Non-Stop Music (which also has offices in New York and LA) conducts what he terms a “substantial amount” of business in major international markets. Non-Stop (www.nonstopmusic.com) is a division of Warner/Chappell Music. Not only does Non-Stop have operations for licensing, marketing and production in London, but in Paris, Hamburg and Stockholm, as well. “In the major European markets, we tend to do our own thing,” says Thornton, NonStop’s president and CEO. “In other foreign territories, we are represented by third-party sub-publishers.” What’s more, “we have several worldwide representation deals for third-party catalogs, for both domestic and foreign [production music],” he adds. Parent company “Warner/Chappell and Non-Stop Music have been acquiring numerous top-tier independent catalogs during the past year,” Thornton reports, including V-the Production Library, Groove Addicts, Carlin Recorded Music Library (now CPM) and 615 Music. “We feel strongly that ‘bigger’ is a necessary component, but more important is having extremely high production

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and creative values, as well as relevant material for each individual market. Certainly, one size does not fit all.” While many music libraries are now placing songs from emerging songwriters for customers, “Non-Stop has always prided itself on producing top-quality music written by real songwriters and real composers and recorded by professional engineers and producers,” says Thornton. “The trend during the past several years of aggregating indie song artists’ material on websites with the idea that ‘if you have tens of thousands of garage band recordings to choose from, the client might be able to find a gem’ is, in my opinion, somewhat of a waste of time for clients. “Most of the material on these sites is unusable and irrelevant more often than not,” he believes. “We pride ourselves on only offering the cream of the crop to our clients, thereby saving them time, energy and money. They come to us because they trust our judgment because we’ve been in business for 30 years.” Non-Stop is taking advantage of the trend for music libraries to be available via mobile phones and other handheld devices – a new app is on the way – and is enjoying an increasingly strong presence in the video game industry due to the acquisition of specific libraries, such as Groove Addicts and V-the Production Library, Thornton points out. But it’s the “quest for quality” that’s “probably the biggest trend we’re seeing,” he reports. “People have a lot of choices these days. There’s 10 times the amount of production music that was available even 10 years ago, so the competition for relevant, top-quality music is extreme.”

The Magic of Music is Timeless at OmniMusic Although Port Washington, New York’s OmniMusic (www.omnimusic.com) has “not yet tried to package our whole 17,000-track library for downloading to mobile phones,” president Doug Wood sees the nature of the production music business changing in other ways. “Clients of certain libraries are licensing music without knowing how it’ll end up being used,” he says. “That’s because no one produces a music video, or any other production, that doesn’t go on the Internet. It’s being cross-purposed so often.” Indeed, video produced today is showing up everywhere, on every platform. Couple that with people’s shrinking attention spans and the need “to be entertained every minute of every day” and the result is a great thing for the production music market, he says. “What we do is orient the viewers to the message that the producer wants to get across. Music is not only the least expensive production medium but also the fastest,” Wood declares. Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

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Think, for example, about how much it costs to create a video streetscape of Harlem in the 1920’s – then think about the musical equivalent. “I can do that with a black screen in seconds,” says Wood. “The music goes right to the subconscious in a way that people don’t even realize. “That’s the magic of music. You can use musical elements as they appear in production music to make [people] laugh, cry or be frightened, or to remind them of a time of year. There’s a lot of power there, but I still see so many producers that just use it to fill in blanks, when they can use it to accentuate their project” instead. “The music can be great,” says Wood, “but its impact often goes relatively unnoticed.” OmniMusic was “the first music production company to issue CDs in 1984,” he notes, and some of its clients date back that far or farther. They range from corporate producers to the creators of Saturday Night

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Live. “They’re big clients and tiny clients,” says Wood. “We’re starting to pick up more agencies that are responding to corporate clients who need music for their websites.” OmniMusic has not pursued the trend of acquiring libraries, but distributes a few boutiques like Flashpoint CDM and Blue Dot. The company has jumped on the bandwagon of placing songwriters’ creations with lyrics with a new collection called Spice. “Every time you see a fad and think that it won’t last, like adding lyrics to production music,” says Wood, “it does.”

[Left] Composer and international recording artist Marc Longchampt is one of the contributors to OmniMusic’s latest collection, Music Outside the Box.

615 Music Increases Global Footprint Nashville’s 615 Music (www.615music.com) found itself part of an industry trend when Warner/Chappell Music acquired it at the end of 2010, a move that resulted in 615 Music founder Randy Wachtler being named executive vice president/North America for Warner/Chappell Production Music. The acquisition “expanded the corporation’s international outreach and partnerships as we’re making more inroads into China and India, for instance,” says Wachtler. “It was happening anyway, but being part of Warner/ Chappell has increased our global footprint.”

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Music and Sound Library Trends

[Below Left] The beat goes on at a recording session at Nashville’s 615 Music.

[BelowRight] 615 Music’s 60’s British Rock Invasion is part of the Platinum Series.

615 Music had acquired some smaller libraries, too, notably Kingsize of New York last year. “Warner/Chappell is still in a growth period, so I expect us to continue looking for other properties as well,” Wachtler reports. 615 Music recently announced a move away from producing CDs to offering a more robust and userfriendly online search engine, 615 Music Search, and a hard-drive application, 615 HD. “For us, this business is all about making it easier for customers to get our music and license it. That’s the key,” Wachtler says. “Online searching and downloading is getting so much better and easier, and that’s key to our growth.”

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The company has always counted video game developers among its customers, and there has been increased business in that sector, most recently with Chronicles of Narnia – Prince Caspian, which featured music from the Scoring Stage collection and Saints Row 2, which included music from the Platinum Series. About a year ago the company launched Song Street Records that focuses on emerging artists and bands for placement in TV shows “and all kinds of media,” says Wachtler. “These days, everything is moving to the Net; some TV shows are only playing on the Net, which has opened up so many new licensing opportunities that the demand for content is stronger than ever.” Currently, 615 Music markets 23 libraries, and “with the oomph of Warner/Chappell behind us, we’ll market our catalogs in a more effective manner worldwide,” he predicts. The company will maintain its quarter-century-plus roots in Music City.

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[Left] Mitchel Greenspan, president/owner of American Music Co.

American Music Co. Goes Its Own Way Mitchel Greenspan, president/owner of American Music Co. (www.americanmusicco.com) in Oceanside, New York, is taking a different path from many in the music-library business. “We’re not partnering up with any international entities,” he says. His library contains 2,000 songs within one catalog, all produced and recorded just for American Music Co., including roughly 175 new tunes each year. “Although we have been asked by many companies several times each during the past seven years to consider doing so, we have chosen to keep separate from other possible suitors. The deals that are being presented to us are not enticing enough to pursue.” To date, American Music Co. has only been involved with its own music catalog during its seven-year history. “The opportunity has presented itself a few times to acquire additional music libraries, but we have chosen not to go down that path, either. Even though that would enable to us to increase the size of our offerings and offer a quicker solution to producing new material, I’ve always felt that faster is not necessarily better.” For Greenspan, it comes down to control over the quality of the music. “I’d rather have control than bring music on board that we’ve not had a hand in producing – not to mention the legal ramifications of the ownership of the copyrights of the music. “Even though I’m sure that everything would work out in the end, I’m not willing to take the chance and put our clients, and our company, in jeopardy with any possible copyright infringements,” he says. “With us being in control of every aspect of the music, we can guarantee that there is no question about ownership. I sleep better at night knowing this.” Instead of following trends in the industry, the firm seeks “to make our own path and to anticipate the type and style of music that a client may want to use,” Greenspan points out. His approach is to take the initiative and produce music that other music libraries may not have thought about creating. “I always like to push the envelope with new ideas,” such as offering rock or jazz versions of classical music in Classical Mania or the new Arabia: The Middle East CD recorded www.markeemag.com

in Damascus, Syria. “We also listen very carefully to our clients and will produce music based on their specific requests,” he notes.

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Spotlight

Southeast

The Southeast: Setting the Stage(s) for Success

[Top] Georgia’s Little Tybee Island. Photo courtesy GDEcD.

[Bottom Left] Director Barry Levinson (white hat) sets up a shot in Georgetown, South Carolina for his new feature Isopod. Photo by: Stan Flint

[Bottom Middle] Manteo Light on Roanoke Island, Manteo, North Carolina.

[Bottom Right] St. Augustine, Florida’s Castillo de San Marcos glows at night.

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The powerhouse Southeast continues to build its production creds with Florida and Georgia remaining strong in feature film and episodic TV production, South Carolina holding its own and North Carolina experiencing a boost thanks to an increased incentive package that just took effect. More soundstage infrastructure, as new studios open and existing ones add space, complement the region’s many location attractions. BY MARK R. SMITH Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

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[Left] A Dolphin’s Tale, which shot in the Clearwater, Florida area, tells the true story of the rescue and rehabilitation of Winter, the dolphin.

[Bottom Left] Kiele Sanchez and Matt Passmore star in the A&E network detective series, The Glades, which shoots in south Florida.

Florida Kicks it Up a Notch (or Two) Florida just finished a great six months, and the next six months are looking even better. It’s funny how that can happen when a state legislature unanimously passes a $242-million, five-year transferable production tax credit incentive program. The new program is actually very similar to the former one, says Lucia Fishburne, director of the Governor’s Office of Film & Entertainment in Tallahassee. “The program offers a base At Tampa’s JCTV (www.jctv.com), rate of 20 percent on in-state expenditures; an owner/DP Jeff Cook has completed a 30-minute infomercial for a new additional five-percent bonus for off-season women’s skin care product, Dermal projects and another additional five-percent Renu. Cook and crew shot the exteribonus for family-friendly productions. So all told, ors for the project at Fort DeSoto Beach, near St. Petersburg (pictured), the tax credit can reach 30 percent.” and the interiors at Creative Studios, Since last July 1, when the new program took which he partly owns. effect, “We’ve gotten a piece of Transformers 3, I He tapped a Canon 7D DSLR for the beach shoot and a Sony EX3 with Am Number 4 and A Dolphins Tale, which was shot a Letus lens adaptor for the studio entirely in Florida – and in 3D. That will be a big work “to give the finished product a one for us, because it’s based on a true story,” little more cinematic look.” The

New Looks Inside and Out at JCTV

infomercial was edited at Ren Scott Productions, also in Tampa, on Apple’s Final Cut Pro HD with Adobe After Effects. Cook says his company has trended toward more in-studio work over the past six months. “We’re finding a good balance between our location and interior work. Using the Canon 7D was a different look for us, since we usually shoot indoors and outdoors with our Sony XDCAM.”

Kohl Pictures Gets Real Mark Kohl of Kohl Pictures (www.kohlpictures.com) in Atlantic Beach, Florida just finished directing a realityshow pilot that was “close to his heart.” In Chefs at Sea, Kohl “kidnapped” and transported Las Vegas “rock star” chef Rick Moonen to exotic Oaxaca, Mexico, to sample and prepare the native cuisine (see photo). “He had to make a dish for the captain’s table of the ship The Seven Seas within 24 hours while dealing with a new kitchen is a strange country – under our watchful five [Canon 5D and 7D] cameras,” says Kohl, a director/cinematographer. The show will air on a cable network to-be-named. West Coast Post in www.markeemag.com

Santa Monica handled editorial. Kohl recently served as DP on another reality show for famed producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Take the Money and Run features a contestant who has to hide a briefcase containing $100,000 from authorities.

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Spotlight

Southeast

On Air (Online) at Midtown Video

Fishburne says. A Dolphin’s Tale was filmed at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, the location of the rehab and rescue of the “star” dolphin, Winter. “It’s a great family film,” she reports. There’s plenty of TV business as well, with USA Network’s hit Burn Notice headed for its sixth season shooting in Miami and A&E’s The Glades shooting season two in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Fishburne says that three more “high-impact” TV series are in negotiations, with more pilots in the works, too. “All told, we have 94 projects that are certified for the tax credit, and all are starting within the first six months of this year. We’re crankin’,” she says. That seems like an understatement: Last fiscal year, the state’s $10.8-million tax appropriation resulted in just 16 productions “and the money was gone by the first couple of weeks.” Fishburne is aware of just how good Florida’s fortune is these days. “As we see some incentive programs shrinking and even shutting down around the country, Florida is offering a conservative, but attractive incentive that provides the state a great return in jobs for Floridians and money spent in our communities,” she reports. Some of the state’s latest news includes Sanborn Studios’ launch on the west coast (see Sarasota profile) and a number of initiatives from Digital Domain Holdings, parent company of Hollywood VFX powerhouse Digital Domain. Digital Domain Holdings has developed a relationship with Florida State University to establish a VFX curriculum, is building a facility in Tradition, Florida and planning to ramp up production of fully-animated features there, and has acquired In-Three, Inc., which has moved its stereo 3D conversion operations from LA to Port St. Lucie. In addition, EA Sports, based in Maitland (near Orlando), continues to create a variety of video games. “We have a number of new companies operating in that sector, which now have greater opportunities to obtain tax credits,” Fishburne notes. The effects of the updated incentives are far-reaching and extend to indie and digital media. The Independent and Emerging Media Queue is “open to lower-budget productions,” with the threshold pegged at $100K

On the January edition of the.videoshow, Midtown Video’s (www.midtownvideo.com) monthly live webcast on jtown.tv, producer and host Jesse Miller featured the Panasonic AG-AF100 AVCCAM HD camera now available for rent at the company. Miller detailed the benefits of its 4/3-inch chip sensor and interchangeable lens mount “that allows shooters to economically adapt a variety of lenses, including PL Mount, to create images with extremely shallow depth of field.” The show spotlights different cameras every month and highlights the Apple iPad’s pro video-specific applications and accessories in the “I am iPad and So Can You” segment. Sony’s new PMW-F3, a Super 35mm digital production camera aimed at the indie film market and competing with RED One, was featured on the February edition. The Sony Authorized Reseller of the camera in the Southeast, Midtown Video is adding a PMW-F3 and a set of Carl Zeiss CP-2 Compact Prime lenses to its rental inventory. Recent Midtown Video clients include America’s Most Wanted, Color Splash, Miami and a German documentary crew.

[Below Right] Aerial of historic Fort Jefferson in the Florida Keys.

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compared to $625K for the General Production Queue, she says.

Lights, Camera, Action – And Lots of It – in Georgia

Hat Trick in Sarasota County To call it an active year in Sarasota’s film and television industry would be an understatement; just ask Jeanne Corcoran, director of the Sarasota County Film & Entertainment Office, about how busy it’s getting in her part of the Sunshine State. She has plenty to talk about, notably the opening of Sanborn Studios, a large grant to the Ringling College of Art and Design and the big news of Sarasota County's incentive package. Sanborn, which launched late last year in Lakewood Ranch, hosted a TV pilot starring Casper Van Dien and Ernie Hudson that has gone into production and “will be shooting the major portions of 13 episodes here this spring,” even though the new series is working-titled Miami 24/7, says Corcoran (see photos). The studio encompasses 16,000- and 8,000-squarefoot stages, and offers productions all of the usual accoutrements – plus a 30,000-squarefoot aviation facility. Ringling College received a $1.75-million grant to equip a post facility and already has drawn interest from directors, stars, producers and filmmakers – including director Werner Herzog, producer Paul Schiff, media mogul Martha Stewart and actor Andy Garcia – as well as television programs contemplating working in town. Lastly, but crucial to those efforts and all others, Sarasota County has just put a localized film/television/production incentive program in place that will provide a cash rebate up to 100 percent on qualified fees and a cash rebate of up to 20 percent on local hires’ wages, among other qualified expenditures within the jurisdiction. It all adds up to a vibrant production community. “This county,” Corcoran says, “is committed to being the regionalized incentive epicenter of Florida.”

Production is bustling in Georgia. The state’s tax incentive package, signed into law in 2008, has been a huge hit – so much so that a new position was added to the Film, Music & Digital Entertainment Office to handle the overload. That spot was filled by Lee Thomas, the director of the film division; she reports to Greg Torre, himself a former one-time film office director who is now the director of marketing for the Department of Economic Development (DED) which oversees the film office. At press time Chris Cummiskey was appointed to head the DED. Happily, no financial changes are expected in the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act, which dictates an across-the-board flat tax credit of 20 percent based on a minimum investment of $500,000 on qualified productions in Georgia. An additional 10 percent Georgia Entertainment Promotion can be earned by including an embedded, animated Georgia logo on approved projects. There is no cap on pay for contractors or the amount spent by the state for qualified in-state expenditures. Georgia’s tax credit is exercised against Georgia tax liability; if a production company does not have a tax liability, it would need to sell its credits to a company in order to monetize it. The state provides a list of potential

[Left] Atlanta’s blazing night skyline. Photo courtesy GDEcD.

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It’s Still About Celluloid at CineFilm Georgia’s 2010 tax incentives have provided a boost at CineFilm (www.cinefilmlab.com), which handled 600,000 feet of 35mm for HD dailies for the Farrelly Brother’s comedy, Hall Pass, starring Owen Wilson, late last summer. Since then, similar tales abound. Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, starring Martin Lawrence, furnished 500,000 feet of 35mm 3perf (which means 25 percent less film stock and processing) for more HD dailies. Other CineFilm credits include processing digital dailies for two Disney/ABC Family films, Always and Forever and Ex-Mas Carol, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame production for CBS, Lost Valentine, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Betty White (colorist Ron Anderson pictured setting the look for the latter in the Spirit suite). “On the digital side, we used our Assimilate Scratch DI system to create advertiser integrations, created by Atlanta agency Bark Bark and shot on the RED One, for TLC’s Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” says account manager Joe Huggins. Next up? HD dailies – the new trend – for two features, including The Collection, a suspense thriller.

[Bottom Right] Rural view in Newborn, Georgia. Photo courtesy GDEcD.

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brokers and accountants to assist production companies in doing so. The effect of the credit on Georgia’s bottom line is hard to understate and something’s always hopping. On the TV front, the CW’s Vampire Diaries does all of its production in the state as does The Mo’Nique Show, a Turner series airing on BET and MTV/Viacom’s Teen Wolf. The Game, a sitcom about pro football players’ relationships with women which shoots in Atlanta, recently switched networks moving from the CW to BET where it scored huge early ratings. In addition, Single Ladies, produced by Queen Latifah, recently started shooting in Georgia for VH1. The Walking Dead, AMC’s original, post-apocalyptic zombie series from Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) which is set in Atlanta, shot in the city and its environs for two months last summer during record-breaking heat. It’s hoped they will return for season two this year. Tyler Perry remains a major force in Atlanta and the industry with episodes of Tyler Perry’s House of Payne and Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns for TBS as well as the feature film, For Colored Girls, released last fall. Also coming to local multiplexes are Alcon Entertainment’s Joyful Noise starring Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton; the Disney feature The Off Life of Timothy Green, starring Jennifer Garner; and The Collection, a sequel to the horror film The Collector, from Odd Box 2, which shot in Atlanta. In production is The Wettest County, a period piece about moonshiners that stars Shia LeBouf and Tom Clark. In addition, The Farrelly Bros. are prepping for their take on The Three Stooges. “It’s busy, and we think it’ll stay that way,” says Thomas. “We have a big airport, temperate climate and diverse locations and now a deep crew base and new studios,” the newest of which is the 37,500-square-foot EUE Screen Gems stage near midtown Atlanta. Completion is set for March.

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Newly-Rechristened Crawford Moves to Expanded Facility There’s big news from one of the Southeast’s stalwart post/production, media migration, archive and management companies. Crawford Media Services has just made the big move to a state-of-the-art location: a sevenstory building at 6 West Druid Hills Drive in Atlanta. Formerly known as Crawford Communications, the company sold its Satellite Services division one year ago. This latest move marks the company’s fifth since its founding in 1981 and its first in a decade. The dramatically transformed, 80,000square-foot facility offers an array of services that meet today’s market demands, including eight 3D-capable editing and graphic suites; a 40-seat Dolby-certified screening/mixing/color correction theater; mass digitization, digital archive and hosted asset management; and facility-wide, file-based workflows. Among other features and services are a multi-purpose tracking studio and insert stage; FilmLight’s Baselight nonlinear color grading; Blu-ray DVD authoring and design; and, of course, creative editing (pictured) and audio. “This new facility is literally twice the size of our last space,” says marketing manager Trey Lyda. “With a diverse client base that has escalated steadily over the past three decades, Crawford takes pride in offering an aesthetically pleasing workplace while providing an unrivaled

gamut of media services. “Also, the new location is close to downtown, which makes it easier for our clients to access other local services and transportation options, including mass transit and the airport,” he reports. The massive facility was designed by Atlanta’s Alex Muñoz & Associates and is the third corporate-headquarters project the firm has worked on with Crawford. Comprehensive Technical Group (CTG) handled all aspects of systems integration.

South Carolina Steady at the Helm Let’s start off the news in South Carolina on a high note: The fifth season of Lifetime’s Army Wives is in production in Charleston. The show employs more than half of the crew of 150 from the state’s base, all of them from Charleston. In terms of film incentives, “as far as anyone knows, we’ll offer the same package again this year,” says Dan Rogers, project manager of the South Carolina Film Office

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Panavision Joins Georgia’s Growing Film Landscape Although several states are pulling the welcome mat for Hollywood filming by limiting the amount of tax credits offered, there is still plenty of southern hospitality in Georgia – more than enough for Panavision to open a new camera rental office in Atlanta in February (www.panavision.com). The new location is Panavision’s fourth camera rental facility outside of the company’s Woodland Hills, California, headquarters (Dallas office is pictured); all are located in states where film and television production are growing. “With the growth of a regional market such as Atlanta, it only makes sense for Panavision to be there with a full-service facility,” says John Schrimpf, vice president of U.S. regional operations for the company. The 10,000-square-foot facility, located in the west midtown section of the city, is designed to accommodate a full-service camera rental office with a wide array of film and digital cameras, including 35mm, 16mm, HD 35 and 2/3-inch. It will be managed by Ann Somogye DeGuire, general manager of Panavision Atlanta. “Atlanta has become a very attractive place to shoot because of the variety of locations, its strong

[Above] The independent feature The Afflicted was lensed in Greenville, South Carolina.

infrastructure and its excellent distribution system with Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The state and the city of Atlanta are totally behind building a lasting, film-friendly culture, and Panavision is pleased to be part of the team providing local customer support,” says Schrimpf. In recent months Panavision has supplied equipment for AMC’s The Walking Dead, Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva, the indie feature Get Low, Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls, the film Lottery Ticket, Universal’s Wanderlust, the new X-Men: First Class, and the BET television series The Game, all of which shot in Georgia.

where Tom Clark is acting director. That means a 20-percent cash rebate for in-state hires, 10 percent for out-of-state hires and a 30-percent cash rebate on supplies. One indie feature was in production last year and will, one hopes, be released this spring: The Afflicted. “It’s truly is a home-grown endeavor, because it was shot on two RED 4K cameras all in South Carolina, by South Carolina crew and with regional actors from the Southeast,” aside from the male and female leads, who

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came from LA, Rogers reports. “The Afflicted was shot in our upstate region, the Greenville area, and was cut [in 2K] at the production company’s own facility late last year. It is working with a national theater chain to release the movie.” Two additional features were shot in the state last year. Isopod, slated for release this year, is from legendary director Barry Levinson, who shot the sci-fi thriller in the coastal community of Georgetown which provided the backdrop for the storyline set in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. Rogers called the movie “probably our biggest news,” because Levinson’s presence underscores the fact that many accomplished filmmakers obviously want to work in South Carolina. Little Red Wagon, scheduled for a 2012 release, was directed by David Anspaugh, famous for Hoosiers and Rudy. It was written by Patrick Sheane Duncan (Mr. Holland’s Opus) and is a true story about a young Florida boy, Zach Bonner, who collected bottled water for homeless kids who had been displaced by various hurricanes several years ago. Bonner subsequently created his own nonprofit that brings awareness of homeless children in America. Meanwhile, Rogers and company focus on pitching locations, “like our beaches. We’ve doubled as Afghanistan for Army Wives and for the movie Dear John, which was released by Screen Gems early last year. We offer jungles, forests, small-town Americana and military bases, and much more.”

[Above] Shooting Little Red Wagon on location in a Charleston neighborhood. Photo by: Jackson Lee Davis

Incentive Boost for North Carolina Another state that is already seeing the benefits of an enhanced tax incentive is North Carolina, where the new refundable tax credit consists of a 25-percent reimbursement for production companies, with a $20- million per-project cap. That’s up from a 15-percent incentive and a $7.5-million per-project cap. The new incentive package was approved last August at the end of the short legislative session and took effect on Jan. 1. All in all, business is good and on the upswing.

Hurricane Sweeps Through Go To Team A recent project at Charleston’s Go To Team (www.gototeam.com) is a performance music video, Hurricane, for Atlantic Records’ recording artist, NeedToBreathe (pictured). It was shot on a Panasonic HVX200 camera, which operations manager and partner Shawn Moffatt says “was made for shooting music videos,” due to the warmth and overall look of the image it produces. Shot on location in town, the music video was cut inhouse on Apple’s Final Cut Pro HD and is being distributed via the Internet, something Moffatt sees as an important trend. “Music has been an increasingly important revenue stream for us during the past 18 months,” he says. While the company shot performances in Atlanta for Trey Songs and in Raleigh for Yep Roc Records, “it’s interesting that Charleston has been the catalyst for musical expansion.” Moffatt also cites Go To Team’s strong presence in the network sports market for “talking head”-type shows.

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[Above] Waterfront at Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

“We got what we were hoping for,” says Aaron Syrett, director of the North Carolina Film Office. “Not only did we get the full 25-percent incentive and with a better per-project cap, but we got rid of the corporate income tax on the incentive. In addition, the new incentive offers fringes [like health insurance and benefits], and stipends and per diems are now qualifying expenses.” Also good news is that production companies that started shooting projects in 2010 still qualified for the improved incentive – provided they worked on their projects into 2011. For example, Hallmark shot The Shunning, directed by Michael Landon, Jr. in the Piedmont Triad in late fall and recently posted the TV film in state – thus qualifying under the new rules. “We certainly would have lost that production under the old incentive,” Syrett says. The incentive boost is already generating other new productions in the state. They include Journey 2: The Mysterious Island starring Dwayne Johnson and Michael

RIDGID Web Spot Shows Skyline’s Flexibility At Greenville, South Carolina’s multi-disciplinary The Skyline Group (www.theskylinegroup.net), a :60 web spot for RIDGID power tools, from Torque Creative/Greenville spotlighting the company’s Lifetime Service Agreement, is among recent highlights (see photo). “It was a fun project because we shot with a Redlake high-speed camera, which shoots 1,200 fps,” says CEO Randall Owens. “Using a slo-mo camera was really cool.” For the two-day shoot on a soundstage at Charlotte’s ReelWorks Studios, Skyline entrusted the production to Philadelphia-based director Dave Huntley. The web spot was edited at Skyline on Apple’s Final Cut Pro HD with Adobe After Effects; Maxon’s CINEMA 4D provided additional 3D accents. Owens says the spot dovetails nicely with Skyline’s entré into the Internet side of the video business. “We want to offer what our clients are asking for and that’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO). They want to expand their presence, so furthering our SEO and web-development services was the next natural step.”

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Earnhardt Turns TaxSlayer at Hammerhead At Hammerhead (www.hammerheadent.com), a division of JR Motorsports in Mooresville, North Carolina, a spot campaign for TaxSlayer, the sponsor of one of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s. Nationwide Series cars, raced into production. Owned by Earnhardt and his sister Kelley, Hammerhead is a full-service production company that creates most of Earnhardt’s media content, from web-based to national broadcast campaigns, along with that of other NASCAR teams and drivers in Charlotte. The company shot two :15s and two :30s for the tax-accounting website at Charlotte Motor Speedway employing small rigs and an insert camera to lens interior shots of Earnhardt as he zoomed around the track at 180 MPH.

Caine, which shot in Wilmington and a Showtime pilot, Homeland, with Claire Danes, which shot in Charlotte. Then there’s the CW’s One Tree Hill, now in its eighth year in Wilmington; Eastbound & Down, the HBO comedy, also shot its first season and the end of the second in Wilmington. Syrett notes that two other projects are in the works, a TV pilot and a cable feature. On the indie front, to.get.her by Wilmington producer Erica Dunton, shot in the seaside town last year and was selected for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival’s NEXT category. Wilmington, of course, is famous for being home to EUE/Screen Gems and its whopping 10 stages, the most recent of which is the Mega Stage, 37,500 square feet of column-free space with a 60x60-foot, 10.5-foot deep water tank, “one of the largest indoor production tanks in North America,” according to Syrett. Still more studios are opening in the state, such as Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s, Hammerhead in Mooresville which encompasses four studios and a post facility (see profile). Trailblazer Studios in Raleigh houses two stages, and Earl Owensby Studios, in Shelby, features eight soundstages and an underwater filming pool.

“Director/DP Jeff Smith shoots car spots, so he mounted three [Canon EOS] 5Ds on the front of a Chrysler Sebring and chased Nationwide drivers Josh Weis and Aric Almorila around the track,” reports production manager Megan Collier. Bryan Scibelli of Charlotte’s Cinemanix crafted the 3D animation for the car’s money trail.

[Above Left] Asheville, North Carolina’s night skyline.

[Below Left] Sophia Bush and Austin Nichols star in One Tree Hill, which shoots in Wilmington, North Carolina. © Warner Bros. Television Entertainment/Fred Norris

Back on (the) Track for Cinemanix From its base in Charlotte, post and VFX facility Cinemanix (www.cinemanix.com) completed another project with a NASCAR theme (see Hammerhead profile for their partnership with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on a TaxSlayer spot). This time the job was a :30 spot for Quaker Steak & Lube restaurants that integrated live-action tabletop and dining footage with a CG race car (pictured), emblazoned with restaurant logos, that races toward the camera and screeches to a halt. Cinemanix modeled, animated and rendered the car in Autodesk Softimage. “The use of 3D models allowed for the movement of the car and the virtual camera to be animated as needed,” says Cinemanix owner/VFX supervisor Bryan Scibelli. Cinemanix shot the live action with RED One cameras, edited the spot with Adobe Premiere, composited and created motion graphics with Adobe After Effects and color graded the spot with a da Vinci system.

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In the

Newsroom

THWAK! MUSIC SCORES A KNOCKOUT FOR LIGHTS OUT

Thwak! Music, the original music/sound design and music supervision company led by Tony Verderosa (www.thwakit.com), handled all the music supervision and many critical music cues for Lights Out, a new dramatic series on FX Network about the struggles of former heavyweight boxing champ Patrick “Lights” Leary. Music selection and synch licensing was overseen by Thwak!’s new supervisor/composer Anthony Roman working closely with FX and FOX executives. “The unique challenge of Lights Out was telling this story without a traditional composer,” says Roman. “So each cue we picked had to have the ability to add to the narrative. The way we used source music was integral to moving things along. We paid close attention to what we thought our characters would be listening to and how the music could help define them and their current situation within the arc of the season.” Thwak! sourced soulful music that represented the working-class setting of Bayonne, New Jersey, selecting timeless cuts while also tapping newer indie artists as well. Thwak! also scored a significant number of original music cues for the series, including main titles and end credits.

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TODD-AO AND SOUND ONE TALENT NAB SEVEN CAS AWARD NOMINATIONS Creative talent from CSS Studios’ Todd-AO (www.todd-ao.com) and Sound One (www.soundone.com) facilities in Hollywood and New York City, respectively, received seven nominations for Outstanding Sound Mixing in the 47th Cinema Audio Society (CAS) Awards slated for February 19 in Los Angeles. Re-recording mixer Dominick Tavella, CAS, of Sound One shared a nomination with production mixer Ken Ishii, CAS and re-recording mixer Craig Henighan for Outstanding Mixing for Motion Pictures for Black Swan (pictured). Tavella also had a solo nomination for Outstanding Mixing for Television – Nonfiction, Variety or Music, Series or Specials, for Baseball – The Tenth Inning: Bottom of the Tenth, which aired on PBS. Todd-AO re-recording mixers Michael Minkler, CAS, and Daniel J. Leahy received four nominations for Outstanding Mixing for Television Movies and Mini-Series for their work on four episodes of HBO’s The Pacific. Todd-AO re-recording mixers Marc David Fishman and Craig Mann each shared one of the

nominations; also named were production mixers Andrew Ramage and Gary Wikinns. Todd-AO’s Adam Jenkins was nominated for Outstanding Sound Mixing for DVD Original Programming for Disney Toon Studios’ Tinkerbell and The Great Fairy Rescue. He shared the nomination with production sound mixer Doc Kane and re-recording mixer David E. Fluhr.

SOUTH AFRICA’S SHEER PUBLISHING GAINS SUB-PUBLISHING DEAL VIA PIGFACTORY MUSIC AND SINDEE LEVIN Independent publishing and licensing company pigFACTORY Music, whose roster includes recordings and songs by Fatboy Slim, Iggy Pop, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts and others, and Sindee Levin Music have entered into a joint venture sub-publishing deal for the U.S. and Mexico on behalf of Sheer Publishing in South Africa. Sheer Publishing’s catalog is comprised of pan-African music, including many of the biggest titles in the history of modern Africa. “Last year pigFACTORY (www.pigfactory.com) placed two songs from the Sheer Publishing catalog into the hit film District 9,” says pigFACTORY CEO Keatly Haldeman (pictured). “On the heels of this success, we were fortunate enough to have expanded our dialogue with Sheer, which has now led to a

more comprehensive, administration deal for North America. By combining forces with Sindee [a leading musicpublishing and entertainment attorney], we will jointly be providing to Sheer both well-established administration services, along with strong creative services, particularly in the areas of film, television, video game and advertising placements.” Sindee Levin notes that, “since the World Cup event, more and more people in North America have become familiar with South African artists and their music. Sheer Publishing represents many of these wonderful performers and their material.”

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Inside View

Stephen Arnold Music | by Christine Bunish

Stephen Arnold President – Stephen Arnold Music • Dallas, Santa Fe, San Diego (www.stephenarnoldmusic.com; www.anti-library.com) Markee: What sets Stephen Arnold Music apart from other music companies? Mr. Arnold: “We have always been pioneers in ‘sonic branding,’ which we call the John Hancock of music. It’s the aural equivalent of the graphic logo that taps into one of the brain’s most powerful memory senses – sound. We help our clients understand that brands delivered sonically reach a place in the human mind that visual branding alone can’t approach – and often linger long after the commercial or promo is over. Kinda chewing gum stuck in your brain. “We’re different from a lot of music companies that contract out with various writers. Most of what we do comes from myself and other writers inhouse; we take more of an artist’s approach to things.” Markee: What are the newsmusic packages you offer? Mr. Arnold: “Budget constraints at local TV stations mean they can’t spend to create completely customized music packages for their news segments, which are their biggest source of revenue. We have about 15 active packages of themes and cuts ranging from edgy to more traditional. There’s always a certain amount of customization that’s done within a package to marry music to graphics and animation or tailor the music to certain sensibilities. It’s something we do well, and there’s a comfort level among stations that know we’ve done it a million times.” Markee: Custom music still comprises the bulk of your business, however. What recent projects have you done for broadcast and cable? Mr. Arnold: “Our work for CNN International’s World Sport turned into a huge project: maybe 20 different pieces of music, including three-second IDs, to 48

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match the wide variety of sports they cover. Because they stay away from a western sound we had to come up with an international sonic direction without sounding too ‘world music,’ so we used more electronica/Euro indie styles. “We did all the music for the National Geographic Channel series Expedition Great White and just finished the opening theme and interstitials for the Golf Channel’s Pipe Dream show, a true story of the comeback of an up-and-coming pro golfer who got involved with drugs and alcohol and ended up living in a culvert. Since the Golf Channel has been getting a younger demographic, we went for a more raw, indie, alternative rock sound. “We also won the Promaxbda Sound Off, a contest where five music companies were judged on the music they created for a :90 promo for the new FOX series Ride Along [since renamed The Chicago Code]. We combined Chicago blues with the feel of Hendrix and the high drama of a film trailer and won the competition.” Markee: Some fun projects you’ve done lately have reflected customers’ local sounds and environments. Mr. Arnold: “We won a Promaxbda Gold for ‘Big Thang,’ a New Orleans Saints promo we did for FOX 8 using all local talent. It was a huge success, and when the Saints went to the Super Bowl the station put it on iTunes and sold something like 5,000 downloads. We redid that promo this year with different lyrics. I was also in New Orleans for WGNO’s ‘God Bless Louisiana’ campaign. We cut a twominute, all-instrumental gospel piece live

at a session with a B-3 organ, piano, bass, guitar and light drums. “We won another Promaxbda Gold for our NBC Dallas-Fort Worth sonic branding in which we took NBC’s iconic three notes and reinterpreted them with a country-music guitar, trolley bell, ballpark organ and more cut against shots of local environments. It was a classic way to connect the station with the community.” Markee: What do you see as the main challenges for a music house today? Mr. Arnold: “One of the biggest challenges is that music has become more of a commodity, a matter of what’s cheapest. At many station groups the CFOs are acting as ‘creative directors’ by dictating work based on budget. “Another challenge is what technology has done to the music business. It has allowed a lot of people to get into the business who can layer a bunch of loops and pads – I’m not so sure someone stringing together loops, pads and textures can be called a composer. I go straight to the guitar or piano to work out a big creative idea then use technology to help implement the idea. And when you’ve got the synergy of people interacting in a recording session, all of a sudden you’ve got music with life and soul to it.”

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